WA Gov. Ferguson’s ferry plan tested by three broken boats

Old boats break. For Washington State Ferries, this inescapable fact was no truer than during the first three days of the New Year.

The state fleet – already operating on a thin margin when even one broken boat can throw off sailing schedules – is missing a third of its ferries, with seven out of 21 vessels unable to sail. Three of them are down due to unexpected mechanical issues since the year began, and four are out on planned maintenance, but all are hampering service as WSF works to rebuild an aging, depleted fleet.

While the boats are dry-docked, examined by divers or simply repaired before sea trials test their mettle to sail once again, those who depend on them will see half as many daily sailings on some routes, and longer waits between them.

Adding to the consternation is a somewhat unanticipated playoff run by the Seahawks with an as yet unknown number of home games that could test the ferry system.

Perhaps it’s a matter of another truism – what’s old is new again.

The Seattle-Bremerton, Seattle-Bainbridge Island and Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth routes each have unexpectedly lost a boat, and will go back to running the same reduced schedules they did during the pandemic. It’s a setback to the state’s efforts to restore reliability after years of understaffing and a diminished fleet.

WSF officials urge patience and promise to return some of the vessels as soon as this week.

“It’s a rough spot to be in,” said Justin Fujioka, a WSF spokesperson. “We don’t really have a deep bench of ferries just waiting around. That’s what the recent investments from the Legislature and Gov. Ferguson are about. Giving us a deep bench.”

Fujioka acknowledged the inconvenience of any canceled sailing, but noted that “it could’ve been a lot worse.”

“It could’ve happened in the heat of summer – the Fourth of July weekend,” he said. “We typically see about 50% more ridership in the busy summer months.”

The issue for the Walla Walla – which normally sails the Bremerton route that the Chimacum is handling on its own for now with half as many sailings – came New Year’s Day, after crews found one of the propeller blades had been sheared off.

Built in 1972, the Walla Walla has come to symbolize the state’s tired fleet of boats, and another broken propeller leading to reduced service reaffirms that reputation.

Dana Warr, a spokesperson for the state agency, said WSF won’t know what happened to the boat until it is dry-docked at Everett Ship Repair, expected Wednesday.

It’s not uncommon for a ferry to hit a log or some other object in the turbid waters of the sound, said Gavin Higgins, CEO of Everett Ship Repair and Nichols Brothers Boat Builders, adding that the Walla Walla hadn’t arrived yet so he doesn’t know the nature of the problem.

“It’s certainly not unheard of,” Gavins said of broken propellers in general. “There are a lot of deadheads in the sound. It’s a pretty scary environment, moving around at great speed and things hitting it.”

Both propellers on the Walla Walla, bow and stern, will be replaced, and each takes about a week to complete. The entire process means the boat likely will be out of service until the end of January.

The propeller wasn’t on the Walla Walla when it ran aground in April 2023, after bacterial and fungal growth in the ship’s diesel storage tanks caused it to lose power and disabled its steering. The boat’s crew unsuccessfully tried to manually restart the generators, and within minutes the captain ordered the anchor dropped and warned passengers to brace for impact. The ship gently beached near Lynwood Center on southwest Bainbridge, and no one was hurt.

Five months after the grounding, however, the Walla Walla was again pulled from service with a broken propeller after crews noticed intense vibrations as they pulled into Bremerton. Divers confirmed that a blade on one of the propellers had been shorn off, and the boat went to dry-dock.

Following the New Year’s Day news about the Walla Walla, on Saturday WSF took the Tacoma out of service after an oil tube problem led to high temperatures in the engine shaft.

The Tacoma will be examined by divers this week, and is expected to return to service sometime next week.

The Tacoma sails to Bainbridge, but now that run will have half as many sailings, all handled only by the Wenatchee, which was converted to hybrid-electric power and returned to the fleet last July, but has been out of service a handful of times since, once for nearly a month.

Finally, on the Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth triangle route, the Kittitas suffered a propulsion shaft failure after an oil seal leak in the engine room on Friday, putting it out of service until sometime this week. The loss of the Kittitas means the route is back down to two boats and a third fewer sailings, a level it had been at for years until last year, when Gov. Bob Ferguson said ferry service would put 18 boats on the water, returning the agency to pre-pandemic service levels.

At the time, Steve Nevey, who heads WSF and supported the governor’s decision, said keeping that many boats in service could lead to unexpected disruptions similar to what’s happening now.

“We won’t have the redundancy we need,” he said, referring to backup boats.

Before Ferguson’s announcement, the state ferry system had for years been running a reduced schedule with 15 boats on the water. The ferry fleet has just 21 vessels with hundreds of millions of dollars in deferred maintenance. With 15 boats in service, the state could have up to six out for maintenance, both planned and unplanned, without disruption. With 18 boats running in peak season, and 17 during offseasons, the state agency can handle just three boats being out before runs are canceled.

Before the ball dropped on New Year’s Eve, four boats were out for service. With the Walla Walla, Tacoma and Kittitas down, the agency is out seven boats.

The Chelan is at Vigor’s dry-dock on Harbor Island for routine Coast Guard inspections and approvals, and is expected back on the water in early March. The Chetzemoka is at WSF’s Eagle Harbor Maintenance Facility for its annual checkup and is anticipated back this week. The Samish is also at Eagle Harbor for scheduled maintenance, which started in mid-November, and it’s out for another month. And the Suquamish just left service last week for dry-docking at Vigor, and will be back in the spring.

Ferguson’s announcement to return the fleet to full domestic service was coupled with his decision to suspend any more boat conversions of its largest Jumbo Mark II boats to diesel-electric power. The Tacoma and Puyallup ferries would’ve followed the Wenatchee’s conversion by Vigor, which was expected to take about a year and cost $50 million. Instead, the state paid Vigor $86 million and the project took nearly two years.

As has been the case for years, the ultimate goal is to completely electrify and modernize the fleet by 2040, a cornerstone of former Gov. Jay Inslee’s environmental legacy. Ferguson said he’s “staying the course” with electrification – a $6.2 billion endeavor that includes building 16 new hybrid-electric vessels and adding charging stations to 16 terminals – and proposed $1 billion in this year’s transportation budget to build three new boats, and $150 million dedicated to maintenance.

Ferguson said Monday on social media that emergency repairs to the three boats “underscores the need to invest in our fleet. We worked hard over the past year to restore full domestic service, but our fleet is aging and vulnerable.”

Ferguson has not made a decision to restart ferry conversions, which he said would wait until sometime after the FIFA World Cup comes to the region this summer.